Camel from Kyzylkum

From my childhood to the time when I left the Soviet Union, Yalta in Crimea was my favorite place on Earth. It faces the Black Sea on the southern shore of the Crimean Peninsula. For hours, I could sit by the sea and listen to the sound of the waves catching up with each other and breaking on the shore. I thought that by listening to the sea, I could learn to understand what it is talking about and what secrets it keeps in its depths. Yalta’s scenic location between the sea and the mountains made the city one of the most popular holiday and health resorts of Ukraine, with many hotels and sanatoriums, including one established in 1900 at the behest of writer-physician Anton Chekhov. A sanatorium is an institution for the treatment and prevention of diseases by using mainly natural factors (climate, mineral waters, therapeutic mud, sea bathing, etc.). These natural factors are used in combination with exercises, a nutrition diet, and a certain regimen of treatment and rest. Sanatoriums were very popular vacation destinations in the USSR.

There were fruit-canning and tobacco-processing industries in the Yalta region, and wine was produced at the nearby Massandra winery. Yalta was a regular port of call for passenger ships from other Black Sea ports. The city was connected by roads to Simferopol and Sevastopol.

We could not stay in my Aunt Mila’s house that summer because my cousin Rimma from Gomel, Belarus, came to deliver her first child in Yalta since the Chernobyl accident had affected Gomel. Elina was born in Yalta on July 4, 1986. Now Elina lives in northern Virginia and has two adorable boys: Benji and Mikey. In the summer of 1986, I rented a little covered porch for us in an old lady’s apartment—just enough space to sleep at night. But for summer in Yalta, it was sufficient. After Natasha got accepted to medical school, I went back to Zarafshan—I still lived and worked there at that time.

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Sparky and I visited Yalta in 2010 during our tour in Ukraine. We met all of our relatives there, including my Aunt Mila and her husband Josef, my cousin Serezha who worked as an ophthalmologist, and his family. My favorite uncle Alex, Serezha's father, unfortunately, had passed away by that time. He was a pathologist, but his wife, Aunt Inna, was still alive when we visited. My sister Alla and her children, Oksana (my favorite and only niece) and my nephew Sasha, arrived in Yalta to be with us as well. We had a great time during our visit. Every evening we walked the beautiful seafront promenade, watching happy people strolling by, busy restaurants, and street artists performing on every corner. Of all the cities we visited during our tour of Ukraine, Yalta stood out for the fact that people there seemed happy and free, enjoying life. Some special, unique spirit reigned there, and we felt almost good in Yalta.

In March 2014, the Russian Federation annexed Crimea. The annexation from Ukraine followed a Russian military intervention in Crimea that took place in the aftermath of the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution. As a result, Yalta now is part of Russia. My Aunt Mila’s husband, Josef, was brutally murdered in their own apartment in June 2015 while Mila was visiting her grandchildren in Moscow. It is still unknown to us who murdered him and why. Vitalik, Josef’s son, already lived in the United States at that time, and my cousin Serezha from Yalta and his wife Lena were visiting us in Virginia.